World's Greatest Dad
by WhiteFlowersOnOurBacks
Summary: Sebastian definitely wasn't crying. His eyes always watered this much in the morning during June. Future!Fic. Sebastian's first ever Father's Day present.


**Author's Note: Because Father's Day is tomorrow and this has been rattling around in my head, distracting me from the other Seblaine story I'm working on. And for some reason I'm really into Future!fic right now... Rating is for language.**  
**And not to sound needy but reviews are love. 3**

**Disclaimer: I don't even own a cool hand-painted mug. :-(**

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It was way too fucking early, was his first thought upon being prodded awake. The sun wasn't even properly up yet, for Christ sake. He wasn't a morning person the best of days, but Ansell had been uncommonly fussy all night and it had been well after 1 when he finally stumbled into bed. And it was Blaine's Sunday for kid duty, marked clear as anything on his calendar (and highlighted, in orange) and he needed it after the past month of hell at the office.

They had first discussed kid duty when Everett was six months. But the ups and downs of parenthood were so new and thrilling to both of them that neither had wanted to miss anything. It wasn't until Everett was 2 that it was implemented. Every other Sunday they took sole responsibility of the kids from whenever they woke up until brunch at noon. It gave the other the chance to spend the morning doing whatever they wanted. Sebastian normally slept, Blaine tended to read. As working parents with a 4 year old and a 17 month old those hours were sorely needed. And barring sickness or other extraordinary circumstances, the schedule was to be stuck to. It had been very effective. Until today.

If Blaine thought he was getting post-nightytime shower sex tonight, he had another thing coming. Sebastian would be lucky to make it past bath time at this rate and he certainly wouldn't have the energy for anything more than a passive cuddling session.

"Are you awake, Dad?" a little voice innocently whispered from somewhere near his left shoulder, as if the hellion hadn't just spent five minutes poking him into consciousness.

"Apparently," he grumbled, mostly to himself as he fumbled for his glasses. Putting them on, Everett's crestfallen face came into focus. Immediately he softened and reached out his hands to tickle the boy's stomach. "Where's Daddy, sport?"

Everett's face lit back up. "DADDY," he bellowed. Bellowing had recently become his favorite form of communication, even if you were standing right next to him. He claimed it had to do with the height difference. "DADDYYY. IT'S OKAY. HE'S AWAKE."

A minute later Blaine's sheepish face peered around the doorframe, a mostly dozing Ansell balanced on his hip. His hair was a disheveled mess and it looked like he'd had one hell of a morning. There seemed to be mushy Cheerios smeared across his collar.

"I'm so sorry, Seb. I've been trying to keep him away for about an hour. He's been up forever and then he went and woke this one up. And they've both been so excited. I told them they'd have to wait until you were awake. I thought I got them to calm down. But then Ansell decided to try and paint the floor with his cereal. I miss the highchair. We should go back to making him eat in the highchair." He stared wistfully into the distance.

"I sneaked up here while he was cleaning up. To check, just in case you were awake. And you were."

"Snuck," Sebastian corrected absently.

"That's what I said," Everett nodded earnestly. Then, turning to Blaine, "Can we? Can we? Can we? You promised as soon as he was awake." Blaine must have nodded in assent because Everett was shooting off down the hall.

"I really am sorry. I know how much you need the sleep," Blaine apologized. Gently he laid Ansell on the bed, taking a moment to stroke his hair before snuggling down between his son and his husband.

"I'm sure you'll find some way to make it up to me."

They stayed in blissful silence for a whole two minutes before Everett was back, toting an overflowing blue gift bag and yelling that they better not have fallen back asleep. Blaine let out an unconvincing snore.

"It doesn't matter if he's asleep. He already got his present," Everett declared imperiously. He deposited the bag on Sebastian's lap and stared expectantly at his father.

"Doesn't mean I don't want to see your dad open his," Blaine said, bounding up as carefully as possible, mindful of Ansell who just grunted a little and rolled over.

"What, exactly, is the occasion?"

"Um, it's Father's Day," said Everett slowly, sharing a look with Blaine that clearly said Sebastian was living under a rock.

Abstractly he had been aware that Father's Day was this weekend. It would be impossible not to, with all the ads and flyers about the sales that had taken over everything for the past couple weeks. And he vaguely remembered Henry mentioning taking his kid to a ball game for it. But he hadn't really concerned himself with it. In his mind it was one of those things that happened to other people. He certainly hadn't celebrated it with his own father; a rather distant man who had, as long as Sebastian could recall, insisted on being addressed as 'sir'.

When he had finally became a father it was just one of those holidays that he didn't understand. Like Valentine's Day. You either loved someone or you didn't and they either knew or they didn't and if they didn't that certainly wasn't a problem a cheap, crappily written Hallmark card could fix. Besides wouldn't a dozen roses on an ordinary Tuesday say more than ones you stood in a twenty minute line with 15 other guys to buy? Stupid holidays created so the industry could profit off the sentiments people spent 364 days forgetting to feel.

Possibly he was a bit cynical.

"Ansell did the drawings." Everett glared at his sleeping brother, clearly unimpressed with his lack of enthusiasm for the proceedings. "And the other thing is from me. I made it all by myself during Josh's sister's birthday party." Josh was his best friend and he had a 9 year old sister who was, in Josh's own words, 'cuckoo crazy.'

Sebastian carefully extracted three pieces of paper. Each was decorated with different colored scribbles; one was blue, the other orange, and the last one red. In the corner of each (in Blaine's neat handwriting) was written 'To: Dad, Happy Father's Day! Love, Ansell.' He smiled at both his husband and the boy next to him before carefully setting them aside.

"Mine now! Mine now!" Everett was practically vibrating on the spot. Apparently Sebastian was going too slowly, because soon little hands were knocking his out of the way, eagerly trying to dig through the tissue paper.

"Easy there, champ," he laughed, moving the bag out of reach.

Everett let out a huff of annoyance and whined, "You're taking too long."

Sebastian toyed with the idea of purposefully taking forever to open the bag. It would be harder to do than if it were wrapping paper, but he could probably make it work.

"Stop teasing the poor kid," Blaine chastised. "He looks like he's going to burst." Indeed, he did look a little like he was on the verge of spontaneously combusting. Sebastian had never seen him so excited about a present that wasn't meant for him.

"Okay, okay." He reached his hand back into the bag and pulled out a mug. Vaguely he recalled that Sasha's party had been at one of those 'paint your own pottery' places. The mug was dark blue and on one side there was a messily stamped golden trophy. On the other side Everett's childish hand had scrawled out 'World's Greatest Dad.' His throat tightened suspiciously.

"You can tell the story now." Blaine's eyes were sparkling with laughter and he had clearly been waiting to tell Sebastian this for ages.

"At the party I got into a fight with Julia, Sasha's friend. She asked me what I was putting on my mug. When I told her she said it was a really good idea and that she wanted to make one for her dad, but I told her she couldn't."

"And why was that, pumpkin?"

"Because I have the world's greatest dad. So hers couldn't be too, otherwise you wouldn't be the greatest. That's what 'est' means. That there's only one." He nodded sagely. "Then we fought over who had the better dad. But you're so much better than hers because you're mine. And that time I broke my arm you carried me all the way home, even though I'm too big to be carried, and you never make me eat my vegetables. And you always take me for ice cream every Saturday during the summer. Not that one time you were visiting g'andmere, though. But you called then and we ate ice cream together over the phone. And you play catch with me and help me slam dunk. And whenever you work late you always come in and say night, even if it's really late, like 9. Plus you make the best hot coco of anyone, anywhere, ever."

Sebastian definitely wasn't crying. His eyes always watered this much in the morning during June. It was because Blaine insisted on sleeping with the windows open even though he knew damn well that Sebastian had allergies.

He wanted to be a good father, he really did. But it wasn't until Everett was actually in the house that he had even been able to picture himself as any sort of parent. Growing up it had never been something he desired, knowing as he did how easy it was to fuck a kid up and that was something he surely would do. At best he could be described as emotionally constipated. Up until the day they were married Sebastian had reserved 'I love yous' for special occasions. After they were married he started saying it once a day, right before they went to sleep. They had even come up with a code word (prickly pear) that meant the same thing but spared him from actually having to say those dreaded words. That was not the kind of person who should be a parent.

A year and a half into the marriage and Blaine had never brought it up. But Sebastian had started to notice how he looked at other families. Even the fake families in subway ads were subjected to his longing stares. He continued to not say anything. Just got up every morning, went off to teach, and came home looking a little more lonely. Sometimes Sebastian would catch him staring at their guest bedroom like he was imaging it as something more.

He still wasn't sold on the idea, but there was no questioning that Blaine would be an awesome father and he could barely deny his husband a slice of cake, never mind this. So he'd gone out and bought a pacifier, placed it in a box and wrapped it up. He had his mother buy a bottle of their favorite French wine and express mail it. He cooked a fancy dinner and lit a bunch of candles. Halfway through the meal he pushed the box into Blaine's hands, watching him intently as he unwrapped the package.

"This better not be some weird new kink, Smythe, I know I said I was up for anything…"

Sebastian shook his head. "Kids. We should have one." Then he went to check on dessert. When he had come back Blaine was crying. He pushed Sebastian into the living room and they made love on the couch.

The adoption process had been hard on both of them, though in different ways. Although so much had changed, two gay men adopting still faced a lot of challenges. When they finally found an agency they were comfortable with they still had to go through the actual process. After the third adoption fell through Blaine almost gave up, but Sebastian had insisted on once more. They'd try once more and if that didn't work there was always surrogacy or they could wait. But he was determined and it was killing him to watch as day by day a little more light went from behind his husband's eyes.

Two years, three months, and sixteen days (Blaine was counting) after that candle light dinner they welcomed two month old Everett James Anderson-Smythe into the family. Sebastian had loved every minute of being a parent from the start (even though he had almost been fired after insisting on a period of paternity leave). He was always the first one up when Everett was crying in the middle of the night and in no time at all he could change a diaper faster than anyone he knew. Things were going great.

But then, right around the time they were finalizing Ansell's adoption, things had started to get hectic at work. His second paternity leave was cut short when one of the partners abruptly left but not before letting it be known that they were considering a merger that might not be entirely favorable for the firm. Everyone had gone into panic mode and chaos didn't even begin to describe the atmosphere of the office. A week after being back, it was announced that Sebastian was the new partner.

It was a fantastic opportunity and something he hadn't even hoped for for at least another five years. Besides, you didn't turn down partner and expect to keep your job for long. He jumped at the offer (how could he not?) and Blaine had never been prouder.

But with the new position came new responsibilities and, more importantly, new hours. Before the promotion he made it home for dinner 9 nights out of 10 and even when he was running late he almost always made it home by bath time. In the first two months after his return to work he was home for dinner exactly 4 times and it wasn't unheard of for even Blaine to be in bed by the time he finally got back and twice Sebastian had ended up just sleeping on the couch in his office. This had resolved itself in an embarrassingly public fight when Blaine yelled that he hadn't signed up for single parentdom and it would be nice if his boys saw their dad's face every once in a while.

Although it had taken another couple months for his workload to taper back to something at all manageable, he started skipping lunch (something he never told Blaine) and taking his work home with him. He worked between story times and late night feedings and stumbled into bed around 3.30 only to be awoken by his alarm at 6.45. He also let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that he was to be out of the office by 4.30 at least 3 Fridays a month.

It had all been worth it in the end, the interminably long days and risky demands. His boys got to see him every night and he was able to repair the marriage he hadn't even had time to realize was failing. Things calmed down at work and while his 8-5 (with an hour or two of work at home) days were still long their home life actually resembled that of a normal family.

Until a couple of months ago when Perkins got sick (stage II cancer) and a few weeks after that unhappy announcement their two biggest clients went into crisis. Now he was never home for dinner more than four times a week and that was only managed by working until 10 or 11 the other nights. He missed almost every school event and soccer game. Next week Everett was graduating from preschool and he already knew he'd have to leave the party 30 minutes early and he owed about 10,000 favors to even be able to make it at all.

During one of his more desperate fits (Ev had scored his first goal and Sebastian didn't even have time to watch the video for two days) he had decided to quit. Blaine managed to talk him out of that by reminding him that he did, in all actuality, love his job and that this madness was only temporary. Perkins was coming back even sooner than they hoped and, if they quarter ended well, they were talking about new hires.

He had been right, in the end (he normally always was). Besides, and this was something Sebastian knew better than to ever express aloud, they needed the money. Not in a desperate way, but Blaine made a pittance at a job he adored and they both had student loans they were still paying off. They had already started a retirement fund for them ('It's never too early,' Sebastian had insisted) and college funds for the boys. Blaine's parents still lived in Ohio, Cooper and his family were out in California, and Sebastian's parents lived in the south of France so if they wanted their children to know their family they needed to be able to afford semi-frequent airfare. And they had just started talking about buying a bigger apartment and maybe even adopting a third. So no, quitting wasn't really an option.

All in all, he was starting to feel like a really shitty dad. He'd been about a week away from taking the only parenting lesson he'd ever learned from his own father (money can, in fact, buy love if the person in question is under 10 years old) and applying it to his own life.

"Who wants to watch a movie?" Blaine clapped enthusiastically; drawing the attention away from his husband who was still clutching the mug like it was the Holy Grail or something.

"Can we watch in here?"

"Course we can, champ. Why don't you go pick something out."

Everett scampered down the hall to the living room where he would inevitably spend 10 minutes agonizing over the perfect choice and return with no fewer than 5 options.

The next day Sebastian would quietly swap out his plain black coffee mug with a hand painted blue one where it would go unnoticed for an entire week before his secretary took a picture of him drinking from it and posted it all over the internet. 15 years later their daughter would break it while practicing for her ballet recital in his office. But, a sophomore in college and enrolled in Advanced Pottery, Everett presented him with a new one for Christmas and wasn't it just the weirdest thing how those damn allergies kicked back up during December?

But today he was content with movies in bed and a too big brunch with his three favorite boys. And maybe, just maybe, Blaine would get that shower sex after all.


End file.
